


The Absolute Earth Experience!

by younglemonade



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, hi i used to be newyorkrenegades, i wrote 12x8 etc welcome to my new username, supercorp broadway au, this isnt my fault the wicked soundtrack threatened me in a dark alley and made me do this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 18:00:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12710064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/younglemonade/pseuds/younglemonade
Summary: Five years after their off-beat Broadway production, The Absolute Earth Experience!, became an international sensation, Lena is pulled back into its orbit for a charity revival - with all the original cast. Including Kara Danvers, an actress-turned-singer, who Lena hasn't seen since she left./ / /"I guess we never expected some weird little story about a girl from Earth and a girl from space falling in love to be such a cult hit, but when they brought Cat on stage... I think that’s the first time any of us realised we were a part of something amazing.” It’s just a variation of a speech she’s given before, at the Tony Awards and on the promotional circuit, but each time, it still takes her back – the four of them so young and inexperienced, stumbling their way through the role of a lifetime. She doesn’t say to the interviewer, those were the best years of my life. But she still thinks it.





	The Absolute Earth Experience!

**Author's Note:**

> note removed

The interviewer is bubbly, bright – fresh out of college, still bursting with the excitement of a dream attained. Lena would probably be smiling back more genuinely if this girl didn’t remind her almost too much of someone else. As it is, it feels like the camera is too close to her face, and the lights are pressing their shine against her skin. It’s hard to keep the enthusiastic grin pinned firmly in place when all she really wants is to tear off the microphone clipped to her blouse and go hide in her hotel room for the next sixty years. Or, you know, until Jess comes and pries her out with a crowbar. But walking off-stage mid-interview on _First Thing in Brooklyn_ is the kind of thing that would probably create the wrong kind of buzz for them.

“It’s been five years since the last of the original run of _The Absolute Earth Experience!_ , the off-beat love story that took Broadway by storm,” chatters the interviewer, and god, her voice is as bright as her smile. It’s nice, but the kind of nice that is giving Lena a headache. “Are you excited to be reuniting with the old cast for the one-week-only revival?”

“I’m very passionate about supporting the children’s hospital, which is where the proceeds of all ticket sales will be going,” Lena says diplomatically, and she can imagine her agent facepalming at how blatantly she just sidestepped that question. If she isn’t comfortable responding, she should subtly redirect conversation, Jess always tells her. She might not have got the subtlety down, but she’s definitely nailed the redirect.

“It’s such a terrific cause,” the reporter agrees, and Lena allows herself a moment to believe the rest of the press tour will carry on this way, and neither of them will have to mention the whole reason she’s here in the first place. “But back to the charity showing, you must be looking forward to seeing old co-stars. While Cat Grant was a Great White Way legend already, _The Absolute Earth Experience!_ really launched the rest of you.”

Lena finds herself nodding, and giving a vague response, as if these people are on par with the other kids in her high school drama club, and didn’t change her whole life. As if she hasn’t carefully kept track of them over the years, making sure they’re getting everything they ever wanted.

“I’m sure we’ve all matured as singers, actors and people,” she tells the camera, which stares at her like a big, blank glass eye. “I guess it’ll be a bit like a college reunion.”

“Did you ever expect the fame it brought?”

She shakes her head. “I mean, we were just kids back then, most of us fresh out of school. Our director, he wanted new faces, to give it a bit of _Noveau Vague_ vibe, you know? When we all got cast, it really felt like those little black box productions. But then the production company wanted at least one familiar face, and Cat Grant joined us. I guess we never expected some weird little story about a girl from Earth and a girl from space falling in love to be such a cult hit, but when we were on stage with Cat for the first time – I think that’s the first time any of us realised we were a part of something amazing.” It’s just a variation of a speech she’s given before, at the Tony Awards and on the promotional circuit, but each time, it still takes her back – the four of them so young and inexperienced, stumbling their way through the role of a lifetime. She doesn’t say to the interviewer, _those were the best years of my life_. But she still thinks it.  

The reporter nods, flashing her TV grin to soften the invasiveness of the next question. “You were the first cast member to leave, after just one season on the big stage. Why was that?”

“There were a lot of reasons,” Lena swallows. “I loved the show so much, and I never wanted it to feel like work – I didn’t want it to lose the passion, and feel like performers were just going through the motions. I think the show was such a success because we were having as much fun as the audience. I knew if I stayed, it wouldn’t be that way again. And, of course, it was J’onn’s original artistic vision for the show to be performed by new players. There were other opportunities I wanted to be a part of, and I wanted someone else to have a chance to make that role shine.”

Lena doesn’t say, _actually, I fell in love with one of my cast mates and didn’t know how to deal with that._ She doesn’t say, _I was young and stupid and listened to what my mother said and left behind my favourite people in the world._

“You guys are going to have to do a bit of revising,” the girl laughs, like this is some joke they’re both in on. “When do rehearsals start?” By her tone, Lena can tell this is the home stretch, just one or two more questions and she’ll be free.

“Tomorrow,” Lena says, and tries to pretend like she’s excited instead of filled with dread. Luckily, she went to Julliard. Pretending is kind of her speciality.

/ / /

When Jess had called her about the reunion show, her first question was whether she could just buy herself out. But it turns out the tickets are going to auction, and Lena’s hardly going to deny sick children money just because she’s too scared to face a girl she loved when she was twenty-one.

Her next hope was that her current production, a musical adaption of _Pride and Prejudice_ , might clash with the schedule, but no such luck.

No matter how hard she tries, she can’t seem to get _The Absolute Earth Experience!_ to leave her alone. She’s done production after production since, each more critically acclaimed than the last, but still it’s right up the top of her Wikipedia page – “Luthor rose to prominence when she originated the role of Isla Isles in the Broadway critical and cult phenomenon, _The Absolute Earth Experience!_ ” The show hasn’t stopped running since it began, and it’s been all over the world, and Lena has watched it like a fifth old friend, happy and sad.

The interviewer had said they’d need to rehearse, but the truth is, Lena could still do that show in her sleep. She remembers every lyric, every second of choreography, the different laughter and cheers of every audience they ever had. The whole thing had felt so vivid and alive, like she was walking around in someone else’s life, someone who had no Lillian Luthor hanging over their head and insisting they date This Nice Boy or This Rich Boy and say yes or no to that audition. She remembers Winn and James and Kara, and the mornings they were too tired and the nights that seemed shiny and surreal.

None of them were the same afterwards, and not just because of the fame. After Lena left the cast, the whole thing fell apart piece by piece. They’re still the voices on the Original Cast Recordings, but Lena’s the only one who stayed on Broadway.

James mostly does producing, now, and she’s been to all of his shows, even though she’s never told him. Winn is a voice actor for Disney, chortling his way through kids’ movies with funny accents that always make her laugh when she hears them. And Kara and Alex have spent the last few months touring their two-girl soft punk band, Red Kryptonite. Lena owns all three of their albums, even though she can’t bring herself to listen to a single track.

She even went back, once, to see the new kids do their show. She knows they didn’t write it or direct it or anything like that, but it still feels like _theirs_. The current cast was cheerful and gifted and freaked out when Lena came backstage to congratulate them, in the dressing rooms that used to be theirs. They were wonderful, but Lena can’t shake the feeling that whatever happened with them, all those years ago, was special. The kind of thing that probably won’t ever happen again, not in the same way.

/ / /

“Up, up, up!” Jess hollers as she strides into Lena’s hotel room.

Lena blinks blearily, the sleep clinging to her like colours, like clothes. She wonders how many other agents come and poke their talent out of bed. Lillian certainly had, but she’s spent the last year reminding herself that Lillian was the exception, not the rule. Most mothers don’t monitor your every blink from adoption to stardom, controlling what you eat and who you talk to and which classes you take. Finally getting the courage to cut Lillian out of her life when she was twenty-five was far and away the best decision she’s ever made.

Jess’s new underling, Eve, is hovering behind her, her face wrought with stress. Lena’s only met her a few times, and she still gets a little star-struck around her, as if being able to sing and dance has somehow imbued Lena with god-like properties to be respected and feared. She used to think it was funny when people gazed at her like that, and now it just makes her stomach twist.

“We’re not missing this get-together, even if I have to chloroform you and put you in my trunk to get you there,” Jess informs her frankly, and Lena is pretty sure if it wasn’t for Jess keeping her together like some patient gardener with a wilting hedge, she’d have retired to the Alaskan wilderness by now.

“We’re not _really_ going to chloroform her, right?” Eve asks tentatively, but neither of them answers her, because Lena still hasn’t unearthed herself from the covers and Jess is charging up her Mom Glare-ray to vaporise.

“Kara Danvers does not hate you, you are not a failure, and you can face these people you used to know. If you could manage not to strangle Mike the entire time you two were in _Wicked_ together, you can sure as hell do this.”

“I can do this,” Lena repeats.

She can.

Besides, it’s been five years. They’re all different people now. Whatever it was about them that made Lena fall hopelessly in love with Kara Danvers will have absolutely faded, and she’ll just be like another castmate of Lena’s; someone to be followed on Instagram, supported on Twitter, and otherwise forgotten once their show is over. There will be absolutely _no_ heart-crushing involved this time.

Totally.


End file.
